Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God

Pragmatic arguments have often been employed in support of theistic
belief. Theistic pragmatic arguments are not arguments for the
proposition that God exists; they are arguments that believing that
God exists is rational. The most famous theistic pragmatic argument
is
Pascal’s Wager.
Though we touch on this argument briefly below, this entry focuses
primarily on the theistic pragmatic arguments found in William James,
J.S. Mill, and James Beattie. It also explores the logic of pragmatic
arguments in general, and the pragmatic use of moral arguments in
particular. Finally, this entry looks at an important objection to
the employment of pragmatic arguments in belief formation—the
objection that evidence alone should regulate belief.

As with so much in philosophy, the first recorded employment of a
pragmatic argument is found in Plato. At Meno 86b-c,
Socrates tells Meno that believing in the value of inquiry is
justified because of the positive impact upon one’s character:

Meno: Somehow or other I believe you are right.

Socrates: I think I am. I shouldn’t like to take my oath on the whole
story, but one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in
word and act—that is, that we shall be better, braver, and more
active men if we believe it right to look for what we don’t know than
if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don’t know
we can never discover.

Paraphrased, Socrates’ point is if being better, braver, and more
active are among our desires, and if believing that inquiry is
permissible facilitates our becoming better, braver, and more active,
then we have reason, pragmatic reason, to believe that inquiry is
permissible. Socrates’ argument is an argument for the permissibility
of a certain belief, based on the benefits of believing that certain
belief. Pragmatic arguments are practical in orientation, justifying
actions that are thought to facilitate the achievement of our goals,
or the satisfaction of our desires. If among your goals is
A, and if doing such and such results in your achieving
A, then, all else being equal, you have reason to do such
and such:

Doing α brings about, or contributes in bringing about,
β, and

It is in your interest that β obtain. So,

you have reason to do α.

As presented this is a particular kind of pragmatic argument, a
prudential argument. Prudential pragmatic arguments are predicated
upon one’s preferences or goals or self-interest. As we will see,
there are pragmatic arguments that are not narrowly prudential but
are moral in nature.

Pragmatic arguments are relevant to belief-formation, since
inculcating a belief is an action. There are, broadly speaking, two
kinds of pragmatic arguments that have to do with belief-formation.
The first is an argument that recommends taking steps to believe a
proposition because, if it should turn out to be true, the benefits
gained from believing that proposition will be impressive. This first
kind of pragmatic argument we can call a
“truth-dependent” pragmatic argument, or more
conveniently a “dependent-argument,” since the benefits
are obtained only if the relevant state of affairs occurs. The prime
example of a dependent-argument is a pragmatic argument that uses a
calculation of expected utility and employs the Expectation Rule to
recommend belief:

whenever both probability and utility values are known,
one should choose to do an act which has the greatest expected
utility.

Among the various versions of his wager argument, Pascal employs this
Rule in a version which states that no matter how small the
probability that God exists, as long as it is a positive, non-zero
probability, the expected utility of theistic belief will dominate
the expected utility of disbelief. Given the distinction between (A)
having reason to think a certain proposition is true, and (B) having
reason to induce belief in that proposition, taking steps to generate
belief in a certain proposition may be the rational thing to do, even
if that proposition lacks sufficient evidential support. The benefits
of believing a proposition can rationally take precedence over the
evidential strength enjoyed by a contrary proposition; and so, given
an infinite expected utility, Pascal’s Wager contends that forming
the belief that God exists is the rational thing to do, no matter how
small the likelihood that God exists.

The second kind of pragmatic argument, which can be called a
“truth-independent” pragmatic argument, or more
conveniently, an “independent-argument,” is one which
recommends taking steps to believe a certain proposition simply
because of the benefits gained by believing it, whether or not the
believed proposition is true. This is an argument that recommends
belief cultivation because of the psychological, or moral, or
religious, or social, or even the prudential benefits gained by
virtue of believing it. In David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion, for example, Cleanthes employs an independent
argument, “religion, however corrupted, is still better than no
religion at all. The doctrine of a future state is so strong and
necessary a security to morals that we never ought to abandon or
neglect it” (Hume 1776, 87). Perhaps the best-known example of
an independent-argument is found in William James’s celebrated
“Will to Believe” essay in which he argues that, in
certain circumstances, it is rationally and morally permissible to
believe a proposition because of the benefits thereby
generated.[2]

Unlike independent pragmatic arguments, dependent ones are, in an
important sense, truth-sensitive. Of course, being pragmatic
arguments, dependent-arguments are not truth-sensitive in an
evidential sense; nevertheless they are dependent on truth since the
benefits are had only if the recommended belief is true. In contrast,
independent pragmatic arguments, yielding benefits whether or not the
recommended beliefs are true, are insensitive to truth.
Independent-arguments, we might say, are belief-dependent and not
truth-dependent.

Pragmatic arguments in support of theistic belief can either be
predicated on prudence or on morality. By pragmatic arguments
predicated on morality I mean arguments that contend that morality,
or some proper part of morality, presupposes, or is facilitated by
theistic belief. And if morality, or the proper part of morality, is
rational, then so too is theistic belief. Put
generally:[3]

Doing α helps to bring about β, and

It is morally desirable that β. So,

It is prima facie morally desirable to do α.

Since (4) specifies actions, we should understand accepting theistic
propositions as actions, even if believing is not an action (for more
on the distinction between acceptance and belief, see the section,
“Pragmatic Arguments and Belief,” below).

It is important to recognize the distinction between theoretical
moral arguments for theism (arguments intended to show that God
exists), and pragmatic moral arguments for the rationality of
theistic belief. George Mavrodes, for instance, constructs a
theoretical moral argument by contending that it would be extremely
odd that we would have moral obligations the fulfillment of which
results in a net loss to the agent. Such a world seems absurd
(Mavrodes, 1986). His argument is built upon the idea of a Russellian
world, a universe in which mental events are products of non-mental
events, and in which there’s no human post-mortem survival, and
extinction is the final end of every biological species. A Russellian
world implies atheism. Summarized, Mavrodes’ argument is that
there are real moral obligations in the actual world. But, real moral
obligations would be absurd in a Russellian world, since fulfilling
moral obligations often cause a net loss to the moral agent and there
is no deep explanation of real moral obligation in a Russellian world
(the deep features of a Russellian world would be things like forces
and atoms and chance). But, fulfilling moral obligation is not
absurd. So, in this respect, there is reason to think that the actual
world is not a Russellian world.

Two examples of pragmatic moral arguments are Adams (1979)
and Zagzebski (1987). Adams builds his argument on the concept of
demoralization—weakening of moral motivation—and the
concept of a moral order—roughly, the idea that to achieve a
balance of good over evil in the universe requires something more
than human effort, yet human effort can add or detract from the total
value of the universe. While we cannot do it all on our own, the idea
is, we can make a significant difference for better or worse. In
short, Adam’s argument is that it is demoralizing not to believe that
there is a moral order in the universe, and demoralization is morally
undesirable. So, there is moral advantage in accepting that there is
a moral order, and theism provides the best account of why that is.
Hence, there’s moral advantage in accepting theism.

Zagzebski builds her argument upon the ideas of moral skepticism and
moral efficacy, and, though she does not employ the term, moral
order. Morality is efficacious if we can make significant
contributions to the production of good in the universe and to the
elimination of evil. Moral skepticism is a doubting of our ability to
acquire moral knowledge, and a doubting of moral efficacy. Zagzebski
argues that it is rational to try to be moral only if it is rational
to believe that the probability that the attempt will succeed and
will produce a great good is not outweighed by the probability that
one will have to sacrifice goods in the course of the attempt. But
given what we know of human abilities and history, it is not rational
to believe that the attempt to be moral is likely to succeed if there
is no moral order. Since it is rational to try to be moral, it is
rational to believe that there is moral order in the universe, and
Christian doctrine is, in part, an account of there being a moral
order in the universe. So, accepting Christian theism is more
rational than accepting that there’s no moral order in the universe.

Theistic moral pragmatic arguments may face an objection similar to
the many-gods objection to Pascal’s wager. The many-gods objection
contends that the betting options of the wager are not limited to
Christianity and atheism alone, since one could formulate a Pascalian
Wager for Islam, certain sects of Buddhism, or for any of the
competing sects found within Christianity
itself.[4]
A similar problem arises for theistic moral pragmatic arguments, at
least insofar as those arguments are intended to provide strong
support for theistic belief. Let’s say that a pragmatic argument
provides strong support for theism just in case it provides reason
for thinking that theism alone provides the benefit; and let’s say
that a pragmatic argument provides weak support for theism just in
case it provides reason for thinking that theism is just one of
several alternatives in providing the benefit. Pascal’s Wager, for
instance, is intended to provide strong support for theism; while
James’s Will to Believe argument is intended to provide weak support.
Pragmatic moral arguments, if they are to provide strong support for
theism, must provide reason to think that theistic belief alone is
necessary for morality, or that theistic belief best facilitates
moral practice. But it’s far from clear that theistic belief exceeds
its competitors in facilitating moral practice. Until reason for
thinking that is forthcoming, it would be premature to hold that
theistic moral pragmatic arguments provide strong support.

The argument presented by William James (1842–1910) in his 1896
essay, “The Will to Believe”, extends far beyond the
issue of the rationality of theistic belief to include various
philosophical issues (for instance, whether to embrace determinism or
indeterminism), and even matters of practical life. James’s argument,
in its attack on the agnostic imperative (withhold belief whenever
the evidence is insufficient), makes the general epistemological
point that:

a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from
acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were
really there, would be an irrational rule. (James 1896, 28)

We might understand the agnostic imperative more fully as follows:

for all persons S and propositions p, if
S believes that p is just as likely as
not-p, then it is impermissible for S to believe
either p or not-p.

…if I let myself believe anything on insufficient
evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may
be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in
outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man,
that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely
that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but
that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things
and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into
savagery. (Clifford 1879, 185–6)

Clifford presented evidentialism as a rule of morality: “it is
wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon
insufficient evidence” (Clifford 1879, 186). If Clifford’s Rule
of morality is correct, then any one who believes a proposition that
she does not take to be more likely than not, is, thereby, immoral.
It may be worthwhile to note that Clifford’s argument here is itself
a moral pragmatic argument.

James has two main concerns in the “Will To Believe”
essay. The first is
to argue that Clifford’s Rule is irrational (James 1896: 28). The
second is that a theistic commitment is permissible. James
contends that Clifford’s Rule is but one intellectual strategy open to
us. A proponent of Clifford’s Rule advises, in effect, that one should
avoid error at all costs, and thereby risk the loss of certain truths.
But another strategy is to seek truth by any means available, even at
the risk of error. James champions the latter via the main argument of
the “Will to Believe” essay. To facilitate matters eight
definitions employed by James are paraphrased:

Hypothesis: something that may be believed.

Option: a decision between two hypotheses.

Living option: a decision between two live
hypotheses.

Live hypothesis: something that is a real candidate for
belief. A hypothesis is live, we might say, for a person just in case
that person lacks compelling evidence disconfirming that hypothesis,
and the hypothesis has an intuitive appeal for that person.

Momentous option: the option may never again present
itself, or the decision cannot be easily reversed, or something of
importance hangs on the choice. It is not a trivial matter.

Strategy A: Risk a loss of truth and a loss of a vital good for
the certainty of avoiding error.

Strategy B: Risk error for a chance at truth and a vital
good.

Clifford’s Rule embodies Strategy A. But,

Strategy B is preferable to Strategy A because Strategy A would
deny us access to certain possible kinds of truth. And,

Any intellectual strategy that denies access to possible
truths is an inadequate strategy. Therefore,

Clifford’s Rule is unacceptable.

James asserts that “there are…cases where a fact cannot
come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming”
(James 1896, 25). Among other examples James provides of this
particular kind of truth is that of social cooperation:

a social organism of any sort whatever, large or small, is
what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty with a trust
that the other members will simultaneously do theirs. Wherever a
desired result is achieved by the co-operation of many independent
persons, its existence as a fact is a pure consequence of the
precursive faith in one another of those immediately concerned. (James
1896, 24)

And if James is right that there is a kind of proposition that has as
a truth-maker its being believed, what we might call
“dependent truths,” then proposition (9) looks well
supported.

Of course, accepting proposition (11), and advancing an alternative
strategy of seeking truth by any available means, even at the risk of
error, does not entail that anything goes. And an important part of
James’s essay restricts what legitimately might be believed in the
absence of adequate evidence. Among the requirements suggested by
James the most important is:

Only genuine options that are intellectually open are
decidable on passional grounds.

James is not arguing against conforming one’s belief to the evidence,
whenever there’s a preponderance of evidence. Nor is he arguing
against the importance of evidence. His is an argument contra the
prohibition of believing whenever the evidence is silent, a
prohibition implied by Clifford’s Rule.

The requirement that an option is intellectually open may be
redundant. If the evidence were compelling, or even strongly
supportive of, say, hypothesis a, and you recognized this,
it may be that you would find only a alive. Since
you’re aware that the evidence strongly supports it, you would
not find not-a living. In other words, to say that an option
is living may imply that it is intellectually open. Nonetheless,
let’s proceed as if aliveness and openness are logically distinct
notions. Additionally, we might ask whether the property of
intellectual openness is to be understood as the evidence is lacking,
or as the evidence is in principle lacking. That is, is an option
intellectually open when the evidence is indeterminate, or when it is
essentially indeterminate? James’s argument requires only the former.
The lack of adequate evidence is sufficient to render an option
intellectually open. If more evidence appears so that one hypothesis
is supported by a preponderance of the evidence, then a commitment to
abide by the evidence is triggered.

The relevance of all of this to theistic belief, according to James,
is that:

Religion says essentially two things. …the best
things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things
in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the
final word…. The second affirmation of religion is that we are
better off even now if we believe [religion’s] first affirmation to be
true… The more perfect and more eternal aspect of the universe
is represented in our religions as having personal form. The universe
is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou….
We feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own
active good-will, as if evidence might be forever withheld from us
unless we met the hypothesis half-way. (James 1896, 25–7)

James asserts that there are two affirmations of religion. By
affirmation James means something like an abstract claim, devoid of
much doctrinal content, and found in the major religions. The first
affirmation is that the best things are the more eternal things,
while the second is that we are better off even now if we believe the
first affirmation. The first affirmation is particularly puzzling,
since James does not assert that the best things are the eternal
things; he says that the best things are the more eternal
things. He explicates this affirmation with three metaphors and a
slogan: “the overlapping things, the things in the universe
that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word.
‘Perfection is eternal,’—this phrase of Charles
Secrétan seems a good way of putting this first affirmation of
religion” (James 1896, 25). Two ideas are suggested by James’s
explication: sovereignty and perfection. If we understand “more
eternal” as a kind of necessity, or non-contingency, then
perhaps the first affirmation may be understood as asserting that the
best things are those things that cannot fail to be sovereign and
perfect. This interpretation resolves much of the first affirmation’s
puzzle. The plurality though is still puzzling. We can resolve this
puzzle by recognizing that, although he does not explicitly call it a
third affirmation, James asserts that “the more perfect and
more eternal aspect of the universe is represented in our religions
as having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It
to us, but a Thou” (James 1896, 26). If we take this
as a third affirmation of religion (perhaps at the risk a charge of
theistic parochialism), the possibility that the more eternal things
are plural is foreclosed. Monotheism, in other words, and not
polytheism is established by the third affirmation. Taken together,
then, the first and the third affirmations of religion suggest that
the supreme good in the universe is the existence of a personal being
that is essentially perfect and sovereign. The second affirmation is
that we are better off now by believing in the existence of this
perfect being. At least in part, we would be better off now by
believing the first affirmation because by doing so the possibility
of a relationship with this being is established.

According to James, just as one is not likely to make friends if one
is aloof, likewise one is not likely to become acquainted with the
perfect being, if there is such, if one seeks that acquaintance only
after sufficient evidence has been gathered. There are possible
truths, James claims, belief of which is a necessary condition of
obtaining evidence for them. Let’s call the class of propositions
whose evidence is restricted to those who first believe
“restricted propositions.” Dependent propositions and
restricted propositions are James’s counterexamples to Clifford’s
Rule. They are two examples of the kinds of truths that Clifford’s
Rule would keep one from acknowledging. That is, Clifford’s Rule is
problematic because following it would preclude access to restricted
propositions and dependent propositions. The Cliffordian may be
forever cut off from certain kinds of truth.

One might object that James has at best shown that theistic belief is
momentous only if God exists. If God does not exist, and, as a
consequence, the vital good of eternal life does not obtain, then no
vital good is at stake. To answer this objection a Jamesian might
focus on what James calls the second affirmation of religion—we
are better off even now if we believe—and take that affirmation
to include benefits that are available, via pro-belief, even if God
does not exist. In The Varieties of Religious Experience
James suggests that religious belief produces certain psychological
benefits:

A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and
takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to
earnestness and heroism…. An assurance of safety and a temper
of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving
affections. (James 1902, 475)

In any case, given that theism is intellectually open and that it’s
part of a genuine option, and given that there are vital goods
attached to theistic belief, James says, the hope that it is true is a
sufficient reason to believe. In addition this objection is easily
evaded if we revise the notion of a genuine option by removing the
requirement that an option is genuine only if momentous, although
James himself may have been loath to drop that requirement.

James’s second main argument proceeds:

the decision whether to accept theism is a genuine option. And,

theism is intellectually open. And,

there are vital goods at stake in accepting theism. And,

no one is irrational or immoral in risking error for a chance at
truth and a vital good. So,

one may accept theism.

With this argument, James seeks to support the second of his two
primary concerns of his essay, that a religious commitment is
permissible.

An objection commonly leveled against James’s argument is that
“it constitutes an unrestricted license for wishful
thinking… if our aim is to believe what is true, and not
necessarily what we like, James’s universal permissiveness will not
help us” (Hick 1990, 60). That is, hoping that a
proposition is true is no reason to think that it is. A
Jamesian might contend that this objection is unfair. As we have
noted, James does not hold that the falsity of Clifford’s Rule implies
that anything goes. Restricting the relevant permissibility class to
propositions that are intellectually open and part of a genuine option
provides ample protection against wishful thinking.

A more significant objection contends that James’s argument fails
“to show that one can have a sufficient moral reason for
self-inducing an epistemically unsupported belief” (Gale 1990,
283). This objection contends that there is a weighty moral duty to
proportion one’s beliefs to the evidence, and that this duty flows
from moral personhood—to be a morally responsible person
requires that one have good reasons for each of one’s beliefs. But to
believe an epistemically unsupported proposition is to violate this
duty and is thus, in effect, a denial of one’s own
personhood.[5]
Or think of it another way, as intellectual beings, we have the dual
goal of maximizing our stock of (significant) true beliefs and
minimizing our stock of false ones. Clifford’s Rule derives its moral
validity, one might contend, from that intellectual goal. And from
Clifford’s Rule flows our duty to believe only those propositions
that enjoy adequate evidential support. James’s argument would, if
operative, thwart our intellectual goal by permitting us to violate
Clifford’s Rule. Can a morally and intellectually responsible person
ever have a moral duty to believe a proposition that lacks adequate
evidence, a duty that outweighs the alleged Cliffordian duty of
believing only those propositions that enjoy adequate support? To
answer this, let’s employ what we might call the “ET”
thought experiment. Suppose Clifford is abducted by very powerful and
very smart extraterrestrials, which offer him a single chance of
salvation for humankind—that he acquire and maintain belief in
a proposition that lacks adequate evidential support, otherwise the
destruction of humankind will result. Clifford adroitly points out
that no one can just will belief. The ETs, devilish in their
anticipation as well as their technology, provide Clifford with a
supply of doxastic-producing pills, which when ingested produce the
requisite belief for 24 hours. It’s obvious that Clifford would do no
wrong by swallowing the pills and bringing about a belief lacking
adequate evidential
support.[6]
Moreover, since one is never irrational in doing one’s moral duty,
not only would Clifford not be immoral, he would not even be
irrational in bringing about and maintaining belief in a proposition
lacking adequate evidential support. As we mentioned earlier, given
the distinction between (A) having reason to think a certain
proposition is true, and (B) having reason to induce a belief in that
proposition, it may be that a particular proposition lacks sufficient
evidential support, but that forming a belief in that proposition is
the rational action to perform.

A very interesting objection to James’s argument is that it falls
prey to the very principle it invokes against Clifford:

James writes: “A rule of thinking which would
absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if
those kinds of truth were really there would be an irrational
rule”. This may sound like sweet reason itself, but a moment’s
reflection should convince us that it is nothing of the kind. Any
rule whatever that restricts belief in any way might conceivably shut
us off from some truths. (Wood 2002, 24)

According to James, Clifford’s Rule is problematic because, if
followed, it would preclude access to restricted propositions and
dependent propositions. According to this objection, this alleged
flaw of Clifford’s Rule is true of any epistemic principle. Every
epistemic principle that divides beliefs into those that are
permissible and those that are not runs the risk of shutting off
access to certain possible kinds of truth. James’s restriction of the
permissible use of the passional nature only to when one faces a
genuine option that’s intellectually open is just as guilty of the
alleged flaw as is Clifford’s Rule. But an alleged flaw found in
every possibility is no flaw. Hence, James’s objection to Clifford
fails.

This objection is interesting since it is in one sense true. It’s
obvious that any rule that restricts belief in any way might shut us
off from certain truths. Still, while interesting, this objection is
irrelevant. James’s argument is not predicated on the abstract
proposition that “any rule whatever that restricts belief in
any way might conceivably shut us off from some truths.” It is
predicated on the principle that there are dependent propositions,
and there are restricted propositions. His examples of social trust,
and acquiring friends, and of social cooperation are intended to make
that clear. If theism were true, then it is very likely that there
would be dependent propositions and restricted propositions in that
realm as well. Clifford’s Rule would preclude access to any
restricted or dependent proposition, whether religious or not. James
is not arguing against conforming one’s belief to the evidence,
whenever there’s a preponderance of evidence. He is arguing against
the prohibition of believing whenever the evidence is silent. Since
James’s argument specifies the irrationality of Clifford’s Rule’s
exclusion of dependent and restricted propositions, and not just the
abstract possibility of some kind of true belief or other being
excluded, it escapes this objection.

William Wainwright has argued that James’s argument properly fits
within an old Christian tradition, which asserts that:

Mature religious belief can, and perhaps should, be based
on evidence but… the evidence can be accurately assessed only
by men and women who possess the proper moral and spiritual
qualifications. This view was once a Christian commonplace; reason is
capable of knowing God on the basis of evidence—but only when
one’s cognitive faculties are rightly disposed. (Wainwright 1995,
3).

If Wainwright is correct, then James’s argument is not just a
pragmatic argument, but also an epistemic argument, since he is
arguing that one of the pragmatic benefits is a more reliable access
to reality (see also the explication of James’ argument via
contemporary epistemic utility theory in Pettigrew 2016). So, the
chasm between the epistemic and the pragmatic is not unbridgeable,
since James’s Will to Believe argument spans the gulf between the
pragmatic and the epistemic. Importantly, we should keep in mind that
whatever else it is, James’s argument is, at least in part, a
pragmatic argument, and, moreover, James probably saw his argument as
having a similar status as Pascal’s Wager, since he offers a positive
evaluation of the Wager, very often overlooked by commentators,
“Pascal’s argument, instead of being powerless, then seems a
regular clincher, and is the last stroke needed to make our
faith…complete” (James 1896, 11).

The posthumous publication of Mill’s Three Essays on
Religion (1874) drew criticism from the faithful, but it also
drew a surprising disappointment from those who expected the
“saint of rationalism” to argue for agnosticism. The
cause of this consternation is found in the third of the three
essays, “Theism,” a short work begun in 1868 and
unfinished when Mill died in 1870. The faithful found
“Theism” objectionable because of Mill’s criticism of
several of the standard arguments of natural theology. The
disappointment of the other side flowed from Mill’s endorsement of a
position that can be summed up by the principle that where
probabilities fail, hope can properly flourish. As Mill expressed
this principle when discussing immortality, “…to any one
who feels it conducive either to his satisfaction or to his
usefulness to hope for a future state as a possibility, there is no
hindrance to his indulging that hope” (Mill 1874, 210). Mill
thought that belief in a creator of great but limited power was
supported by the design argument, and one could certainly erect the
superstructure of hope upon the base of a belief in a creator who
would extend human existence beyond the grave:

Appearances point to the existence of a Being who has
great power over us—all the power implied in the creation of
the Kosmos, or of its organized beings at least—and of whose
goodness we have evidence though not of its being his predominant
attribute; and as we do not know the limits either of his power or of
his goodness, there is room to hope that both the one and the other
may extend to granting us this gift provided that it would really be
beneficial to us. (Mill 1874, 210)

Since we do not know that granting postmortem existence to humans is
beyond the capability of the creator, hope is possible. As Mill puts
it:

…in the regulation of the imagination literal truth
of facts is not the only thing to be considered. Truth is the
province of reason, and it is by the cultivation of the rational
faculty that provision is made for its being known always, and thought
of as often as is required by duty and the circumstances of human
life. But when reason is strongly cultivated, the imagination may
safely follow its own end, and do its best to make life pleasant and
lovely… On these principles it appears to me that the
indulgence of hope with regard to the government of the universe and
the destiny of man after death, while we recognize as a clear truth
that we have no ground for more than a hope, is legitimate and
philosophically defensible. The beneficial effect of such a hope is
far from trifling. (Mill 1874, 248–9)

For our purposes the item of interest is Mill’s claim that “any
one who feels it conducive either to his satisfaction or to his
usefulness to hope for a future state as a possibility, there is no
hindrance to his indulging that hope” (Mill 1874, 210). Mill’s
license to hope is issued on pragmatic grounds: it is permissible to
hope if and only if:

L1. For all one knows or justifiably believes, the object of one’s
hope could obtain; and,

L2. One believes that hoping contributes to one’s own happiness, or
to the well-being of others.

The second condition (L2) is straightforwardly pragmatic and
restricts hope to those who have goals either of personal happiness,
or of contributing to the well-being of others. Believing that hope
will result in the increase of happiness or well-being is a necessary
condition of permissible hope.

There’s little doubt that Mill agreed with Clifford’s Rule. Mill was
no subjectivist or fideist. But hope and belief are not the same; and
the standards for the permissibility of the latter are considerably
higher. Mill thought that (L1) and (L2) were the relevant standards
for permissible hope. If one believes that Clifford’s Rule should
govern any and all propositional attitudes and not just belief, then
it is easy to see why Mill’s liberal treatment of hope would
disappoint.

Mill held that one may hope that God exists, but one may not
believe that God exists, as the evidence is lacking. Suppose one
agrees with Mill, that faith can subsist on hope, trust, or some other
non-doxastic attitude other than belief. Suppose further that
one seeks to build a theistic commitment on hope. The acceptance
of theistic hope provides reason to act as if theism were true, not
because one believes that it is true, but because one hopes that
it is. What is it to act as if theism is true? It is to
put into practice behaviors characteristic of a particular religious
tradition, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Acting as if
a certain religious tradition were true would include reorienting
one’s values, priorities, and life-projects in order to reflect a
commitment to a particular tradition. It would also involve
engaging in the rituals and behaviors associated with the particular
tradition; and investing a significant portion of one’s time and money
in support of causes associated with the tradition.

A problem
arises however. Social psychology, with its theories of biased
scanning, social-perception theory, and cognitive dissonance theory,
advances the idea that behavior can alter, influence, and generate
attitudes, including beliefs (see Jordan 2016). By regularly engaging in behaviors
and practices characteristic of a particular religious tradition, one
engages in actions that tend to inculcate religious belief.
Belief is catching, as associating and imitating the faithful is
an effective way of self-inducing the beliefs of the faithful.
Those who seek to replace belief with hope will find themselves
taking steps to build a theistic commitment on hope, while holding
that they ought to avoid theistic belief. Yet, the very steps involved
in fostering a commitment on hope – immersive role-playing as a
theist, or acting as if theism were true – tend to generate theistic
belief. Those who habitually or chronically imitate the actions
and rituals of theists find eventually that those are not just tasks
they perform, but are at the heart of who they are and what they
believe. Yet, theistic belief is off-limits.

One
would have to take steps that inoculate against the contagious
theistic belief. Yet, the reasons one has to build a theistic
commitment on hope and not belief, would conflict with one’s reasons
to inoculate against catching belief. One is pushed to act as if
theism were true, yet pulled to act to ensure that one does not come
to believe that it is. Whatever commitment might emerge out of this
dynamic is not likely one characteristic of a mature or wholeheartedly
committed theist.

This problem of catching belief flows out of the fact that
chronically acting as if something is true is an effective way of
inculcating the belief that it is true. Any non-doxastic account of
faith put into regular practice, coupled with Clifford’s Rule,
is exposed to the problem of catching belief. Religious Fictionalism,
for example, which holds that faith that p does not require
belief that p, has to deal with the problem. For more
discussion, see Malcolm and Scott 2017, and Jordan 2016.

In 1770 James Beattie (1735–1803) published a long response to
Hume entitled An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth,
in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. The essay was a 300
page best seller, which, most commentators agree, was unfair in many
respects to Hume. As was his practice, Hume never made an effort to
answer Beattie in public; in correspondence, however, Hume referred
to Beattie as that “bigoted silly
fellow.”[7]

Despite the general weakness of many of his arguments Beattie does
offer an interesting pragmatic moral objection to Hume’s attack on
religious belief:

…they perhaps have little need, and little relish,
for the consolations of religion. But let them know that, in the
solitary scenes of life, there is many an honest and tender heart
pining with incurable anguish, pierced with the sharpest sting of
disappointment, bereft of friends, chilled with poverty, racked with
disease, scourged by the oppressor; whom nothing but trust in
Providence, and the hope of a future retribution, could preserve from
the agonies of despair. And do they, with sacrilegious hands, attempt
to violate this last refuge of the miserable, and to rob them of the
only comfort that had survived the ravages of the misfortune, malice,
and tyranny! Did it ever happen, that the influence of their
execrable tenets disturbed the tranquility of virtuous retirement,
deepened the gloom of human distress, or aggravated the horrors of the
grave? Is it possible that this may have happened in many instances?
Is it probable that this hath happened, or may happen, in one single
instance?—ye traitors to human kind, how can ye answer for it
to your own hearts? (Beattie 1776, 322–23).

Beattie argues that Hume’s clear cutting of the theistic forest in
his attack on the credibility of miracle reports, his criticism of
the design argument, and his attack on the cosmological argument
resulted in a desolated landscape that does a serious disservice to
humankind. Since in some cases, Beattie contends, despair flows from
the loss of faith. And he assumes that no justifying good exists for
Hume to risk causing despair.

Let’s understand desolation as a profound sense of hopelessness and
purposelessness. Beattie believed that Christian belief provided
consolation, especially to those suffering or oppressed. His argument
might be reconstructed as there exists a person S, such
that:

Theistic belief provides the great good of consolation for S.
And,

S cannot receive a comparable good from any other source.
And,

The deprivation of this good is a significant loss for S.
So,

Depriving S of the great good of theistic belief renders
S significantly worse-off. And,

It is wrong to render someone worse-off without compensation.
And,

Public atheistic attacks provide S with no sufficient
compensation. Therefore,

Public atheistic attacks are wrong.

While Hume never directly responded to Beattie’s Consolation
Argument, Mill had it (or something very much like it in mind) when
he wrote:

That what is called the consoling nature of an opinion,
that is, the pleasure we should have in believing it to be true, can
be a ground for believing it, is a doctrine irrational in itself and
which would sanction half the mischievous illusions recorded in
history or which mislead individual life. (Mill 1874,
204)

This is an odd objection coming from one who argued in
Utilitarianism “actions are right in proportion as
they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness.” If the sole criterion of action is the
production of happiness, and if forming a belief is an action, then
it is hard to see what answer could be lodged against Beattie’s
Consolation Argument (or at least some argument very much like
it).[8]
If happiness and consolation are irrelevant, and if Clifford’s Rule
that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to
believe anything upon insufficient evidence” is correct, then
Beattie’s consolation argument can be rejected as being itself an
immoral
subornation.[9]

An argument similar to Beattie’s consolation argument is found
in a suggestive passage of John Henry Newman’s 1870 An Essay
in Aid of A Grammar of Assent, famously known as the
“factory girl” argument. Newman (1801–1890) did not
formulate the “factory girl” argument as a pragmatic argument, but the
argument certainly lends itself to such a formulation:

Montaigne was endowed with a good estate, health, leisure and an easy
temper, literary tastes, and a sufficiency of books; he could afford
thus to play with life, and the abysses into which it leads us. Let us
take a case in contrast.

“I think”, says the poor dying factory-girl in the tale,
“if this should be the end of all, and if all I have been born
for is just to work my heart and life away, and to sicken in this dree
place, with those mill-stones in my ears forever, until I could scream
out for them to stop and let me have a little piece of quiet, and with
the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one long
deep breath of the clear air, and my mother gone, and I never able to
tell her again how I loved her, and of all my troubles,—I
think, if this life is the end, and that there is no God to
wipe away all tears from all eyes, I could go
mad!”

Here is an argument for the immortality of the soul (Newman 1870, 299–300).

This argument lends itself easily to a pragmatic cast since it places
great weight on the idea that certain human needs support the rational
and moral legitimacy of religious belief:

We have existential needs – a need for a deep meaning in
life, a need for hope, a need for cosmic security, a need for
consolation from despair – which are necessary for our
well-being. And,

Belief in God satisfies these existential needs. So,

Belief in God is overall justified.

This sort of argument faces many questions and issues that we cannot
explore here. Among these issues and questions are: suppose that one,
morally and rationally, may satisfy a need, it does not follow that
one can satisfy that need in any old way. Some ways of satisfying a
need are permissible while others are not. Is belief in God a
permissible way? Do humans in fact have the alleged needs? Is belief
in God the only feasible way to satisfy those needs? See Williams 2011
for further discussion.

Clifford’s Rule is a vivid presentation of an influential and long
tradition in philosophy that carries the name of Evidentialism. We
can understand Evidentialism as the thesis that:

E. For all persons S and propositions p and times
t, S ought to believe that p at t
if and only if believing p fits S’s evidence at
t.

Clearly enough, pragmatic arguments run afoul of (E), since pragmatic
arguments are employed either when the evidence is inconclusive, or
it is conclusively adverse. Consider the latter case first. Earlier
it was mentioned that Pascal’s Wager is the most famous example of a
theistic pragmatic argument. Pascal in fact has not one version of
the Wager in his Pensées (1660) but four. The third
version of the Wager is what Ian Hacking (1972) entitles the
“Argument from Dominating Expectation,” and it employs
the Expectation rule. We can represent it by letting p stand
for a positive probability greater than zero and less than one-half,
and letting EU stand for “expected utility,” and
employing F2–F4 as finite values:

God exists
(p)

~(God exists)
(1−p)

Believe

p, ∞

1 − p, F2

EU = ∞

~(Believe)

p, F3

1 − p, F4

EU = finite value

No matter how unlikely it is that God exists, as long as there is
some positive non-zero probability that he does, believing is one’s
best bet:

For any person S, and alternatives α and β
available to S, if the expected utility of α exceeds
that of β, S should choose α. And,

Believing in God carries more expected utility than does not
believing. Therefore,

One should believe in God.

Because of its ingenious employment of infinite utility, the third
version has become what most philosophers think of as Pascal’s
Wager. The appeal of the third version for theistic apologists is its
ready employment as a worst-case device. Suppose there were a
compelling argument for atheism. With the third version the theist has
an escape: it can still be rational to believe, even if the belief is
itself unreasonable, since inculcating theistic belief is an action
with an infinite expected utility. This use as a worst-case device is
something like a trump card that can be thrown down defeating what had
appeared as a stronger hand. Pascal’s third version clearly
violates (E).

Now consider James’s Will to Believe argument. As we saw, James’s
contention is that any hypothesis that’s part of a genuine option,
and that’s intellectually open, may be believed, even in the absence
of sufficient evidence. No rule of morality or rationality, James
argues, is violated if one accepts a hypothesis that’s genuine and
open. If James is correct, then (E) should be replaced with:

E′. For all persons S and propositions p and
times t, if believing p fits S’s evidence
at t, then S ought to believe that p at
t.

According to (E′) if the evidence is adequate, then the
question is settled. If there’s a preponderance of support for
p, then one is required to believe p. Where the
evidence speaks, one must listen and obey. (E′) differs from
(E) in part since it says nothing about those occasions in which the
evidence is silent, or is inadequate. If one assigns p a
probability of one-half, then there’s not a preponderance of evidence
in support of p. (E′) says nothing about believing
p in that case. Principle (E), on the other hand, forbids
believing p in that case. While a proponent of theistic
pragmatic arguments cannot swear allegiance to (E), she can, clearly
enough, adhere to (E′). Let’s call (E) Strong Evidentialism,
and (E′) Weak Evidentialism. So, an employer of theistic
pragmatic arguments can conform to Weak Evidentialism, but not Strong
Evidentialism.

Is there a good reason to prefer Weak Evidentialism to Strong (in
addition to James’s argument)? A promising argument in support of the
moral and rational permissibility of employing pragmatic reasons in
belief-formation is erected upon the base of what we might call the
Duty Argument (or perhaps more precisely, the Duty Argument
scheme):

It is necessary that (no one is (overall) irrational in doing what he’s morally
obligated to do). And,

It is possible that (doing α is a moral obligation). So,

It is possible that (doing α is (overall) rational).

The Duty Argument employs the box and diamond in the standard fashion
as operators for, respectively, conceptual necessity and
possibility. The alpha is just a placeholder for actions, or kinds of
actions. The locution “(overall) rational” or
“(overall) irrational” presupposes that there are various
kinds of rationality, including moral rationality, epistemic
rationality, and prudential
rationality.[10]
The idea that there are various kinds of rationality, or put any way,
that one can be under conflicting obligations at a particular time,
recognizes that dilemmas are possible. One can be obligated to do
various things even when it’s not possible to do all of them. Overall
rationality is the all-things-considered perspective. It is what one
ultimately should do, having taken into account the various
obligations one is under at a particular time. Overall rationality, or
all-things-considered rationality (ATC rationality), is, in W.D.
Ross’s terms, one’s actual duty in the particular circumstances, even
if one has other conflicting prima facie duties. The Duty
Argument can be formulated without presupposing that there are various
kinds of rationality, by replacing the principle that no one is
ever irrational in doing her moral duty, with the principle
that moral obligations take
precedence whenever a dilemma of obligations occurs. In any
case the Duty Argument assumes that if in doing something one is not
ATC irrational, then it follows that one is ATC rational in doing
it.

The relevance of the Duty Argument is this. The action of
forming and sustaining a belief upon pragmatic grounds can replace
α. That is, pragmatic belief formation could be one’s moral
duty. Consider the following four cases in which pragmatic
belief formation is, arguably, morally required:

Devious ETs: Suppose you are abducted by very powerful and
advanced extraterrestrials, who demonstrate their intent and power to
destroy the Earth. Moreover, these fiendish ETs offer but one
chance of salvation for humankind – you acquire and maintain a
belief for which you lack adequate evidence. You adroitly point
out that you cannot just will such a belief, especially since you know
of no good reason to think it true. Devilish in their
anticipation and in their technology, the ETs produce a device that
can directly produce the requisite belief in willing subjects, a
serum, say, or a supply of one-a-day doxastic-producing pills.
It is clear that you would do no wrong by swallowing a pill or
injecting the serum, and, hence, bringing about and maintaining belief
in a proposition for which you lack adequate evidence, done to save
humankind. Indeed, it is clear that you are in fact obligated to
bring about the requisite belief, even though you lack adequate
evidence for it.

Pain case: Jones knows that expecting an event to
be painful is strongly correlated with an increase in the intensity of
felt pain (as opposed to having no expectation, or expecting the event
to be relatively painless). Jones is about to have a boil
lanced, and believing that she is obligated to minimize pain, she
forms the belief that the procedure will be painless. She does
so even though she lacks evidence that such procedures are in fact
typically painless. Because of her action, the event is in fact
less painful than it would otherwise have been.

Small child: Suppose you are the parent or
custodian of a small child, who has been hurt. You know that
studies support the thesis that the felt pain reported by patients is
typically higher in cases in which the patient expected the event to
be painful than in cases where the patient did not have that
expectation. You have no idea about the relative pain associated
with a particular medical procedure that the child is about
undergo. The child asks you if the procedure will be painful.
Desiring to lower the pain the child will feel, you tell the child
that the procedure will not hurt, hoping that the child will form a
belief not supported by the evidence, but thereby lowering the
child’s felt pain.

Doctor case: Dr. Jones knows that the prognosis for
Smith’s recovery is poor, but if she acts on that knowledge by
telling Smith of his poor prognosis, she may well strip Smith of
hope. Jones believes that maintaining hope is vital for quality
of life. Overall, Jones decides it is better not to inform Smith
just how poor the prognosis is and she does not disabuse Smith of her
evidentially unsupported belief.

These four cases provide possible scenarios in which pragmatic
belief formation, or suborning pragmatic belief formation in others,
is morally required.

Although controversial, the Duty Argument, if sound, would provide
good reason for thinking that there are occasions in which it is
permissible, both rationally and morally, to form beliefs based upon
pragmatic reasons even in the absence of adequate evidence. If
the Duty Argument is sound, then (E) is false.

The Duty Argument presupposes that there are various kinds of
rationality. Many Evidentialists, as well as many opponents of
Evidentialism, also assume that there are various kinds of
rationality. What if however there is only one kind or standard
of rationality? What impact would that have on the debate? Susanna
Rinard argues that it is best to reject the idea that there are
various kinds or standards of rationality, and replace that idea with
an equal treatment idea that all states – whether doxastic or
not – face a single standard of rationality (Rinard 2017).
Equal treatment of states – states like carrying an umbrella, or
walking the dog, or voting for this candidate over that, or forming a
belief in God – provides greater theoretical simplicity than
does the idea that there are various standards or kinds of
rationality. Equal Treatment also better explains the
methodological attraction of simplicity in science than does the idea
that there are various kinds of rationality, Rinard argues. If the
equal treatment of all states idea is correct, then doxastic states
would face the same standard of rationality as states of action.
The Equal Treatment idea provides an additional objection to
Evidentialism insofar as Evidentialism implies that beliefs are
subject to one standard, while other states are subject to another
standard.

Whether it is via Rinard’s Equal Treatment argument, or the
Duty Argument, there is, arguably, good reason to reject
Evidentialism.

The idea that persons can voluntarily and directly choose what to
believe is called “Doxastic Voluntarism”. According
to Doxastic Voluntarism, believing is a direct act of the will, with
many of the propositions we believe under our immediate control.
A basic action is an action that a person intentionally does, without
doing any other action. Jones’ moving of her finger is a
basic action, since she need not perform any other action to accomplish
it. Her handing the book from Smith to Brown is not basic, since
she must intentionally do several things to accomplish it.
According to Doxastic Voluntarism, some of our belief acquisitions are
basic actions. We can will, directly and voluntarily, what to
believe and the beliefs thereby acquired are freely obtained and are
not forced upon us. In short, one can believe at will. The
proponent of Doxastic Voluntarism need not hold that every proposition
is a candidate for direct acquisition, as long as she holds that there
are some propositions belief in which is under our direct
control.

It is widely thought that Doxastic Voluntarism is
implausible. Opponents of Doxastic Voluntarism can present a simple
experiment against it: survey various propositions that you do not
currently believe, and see if any lend themselves, directly and
immediately, by a basic act of the will, to belief. Certainly there
are some beliefs that one can easily cause oneself to have. Consider
the proposition that I am now holding a pencil. I can cause myself to
believe that by simply picking up a pencil. Or more generally, any
proposition about my own basic actions I can easily enough believe by
performing the action. But my coming to believe is by means of some
other basic action. Since I lack direct control over what I believe,
and there’s no reason to think that my lacking in this regard is
singular, Doxastic Voluntarism is implausible. Does the implausibility
of Doxastic Voluntarism show that pragmatic belief-formation is also
implausible?

Not at all: think of Pascal’s advice to act as if one already believes
(by going to masses and by imitating the faithful) as a way of
inculcating belief. Pragmatic belief-formation neither entails nor
presupposes Doxastic Voluntarism. As long as there is indirect
control, or roundabout control, over the acquisition and maintenance
of beliefs, pragmatic belief-formation is possible. What constitutes
indirect control over the acquisition of beliefs? Consider actions
such as entertaining a proposition, or ignoring a proposition, or
critically inquiring into the plausibility of this idea or that, or
accepting a proposition. Each of these involves a propositional
attitude, the adoption of which is under our direct control. Indirect
control occurs since accepting a proposition, say, or acting as if a
proposition were true, very often results in believing that
proposition. Insofar as there is a causal connection between the
propositional attitudes we adopt, and the beliefs that are thereby
generated, we can be said to have exercised indirect, or roundabout,
control over belief-formation.

One objection to the foregoing is that pragmatic arguments are, by and
large, pointless because beliefs are, by their very nature,
psychological states that aim for truth. That is, whenever one
believes a proposition, one is disposed to feel that that proposition
is probably the case. A person ordinarily cannot believe a proposition
that she takes to have a probability of less than one-half or whose
probability is uncertain since such propositional attitudes do not aim
for truth. The upshot of this objection is that strong evidentialism
is unavoidable.

If it is true, as this objection holds, that believing a proposition
ordinarily involves being disposed to feel that the proposition is the
case then it does appear at first blush that pragmatic
belief-formation, as such, is ineffectual. But all that follows from
this fact, if such it be, is that some sort of belief-inducing
technology will be necessary in order to facilitate the acquisition of
a proposition that is pragmatically supported. Now it is true that the
most readily available belief-inducing technologies
– selectively using the evidence for instance – all involve a degree
of self-deception, since one ordinarily cannot attend only to the
favorable evidence in support of a particular proposition while
neglecting the adverse evidence arrayed against it and, being conscious
of all this, expect that one will acquire that belief. The fact
that self-deception is a vital feature of the readily available
belief-formation technologies leads to another objection.

This second objection is that willfully engaging in self-deception
renders pragmatic belief-formation morally problematic and rationally
suspect, since willfully engaging in self-deception is the deliberate
worsening of one’s epistemic situation. It is morally and rationally
problematic to engage in pragmatic belief-formation, insofar as
belief-formation involves self-deception.

This second objection is powerful if sound, but we must be careful
here. First, while self-deception may be a serious problem with regard
to inculcating a belief which one takes to be false, it does not seem
to be a serious threat involving the inculcation of a belief which one
thinks has as much evidence in its favor as against it, nor does it
seem to be a threat when one takes the probability of the proposition
to be indeterminate, since one could form the belief knowing full well
the evidential situation. Even if it is true that believing that p
is being disposed to feel that p is the case, it does not
follow that believing that p involves
being disposed to feel that p is the case based on the evidence at
hand. Second, this is an objection not to pragmatic
belief-formation per se, but an objection to pragmatic
belief-formation that involves self-deception. Although it may be
true that the employment of self-deceptive belief-inducing technologies
is morally and rationally problematic, this objection says nothing
about those belief-inducing technologies that do not involve
self-deception. If there are belief-inducing technologies which
are free of self-deception and which could generate a belief on the
basis of a pragmatic reason, then this objection
fails.[11]

Is there a belief-inducing technology available that does not involve
self-deception? There is. Notice first there are two sorts of
belief-inducing technologies distinguishable: “low-tech”
technologies and “high-tech” ones. Low-tech technologies
consist of propositional attitudes only, while high-tech ones employ
nonpropositional techniques along with various propositional
attitudes. The nonpropositional techniques could include actions like
acting as if a certain proposition were true, and morally questionable
ones like hypnosis, or indoctrination, or subliminal
suggestion. Consider a technology consisting of two components, the
first of which is the acceptance of a proposition, while the second is
a behavioral regimen of acting on that acceptance. Accepting a
proposition, unlike believing, is an action that is characterized, in
part, by one’s assenting to the proposition, whether one believes it
or not. One accepts a proposition, when she assents to its truth and
employs it as a premise in her deliberations. One can accept a
proposition that one does not believe. Indeed, we do this much of the
time. For example, think of the gambler’s fallacy. One might be
disposed to believe that the next toss of the fair coin must come up
Tails, since it has been Heads on the previous seven
tosses. Nevertheless, one ought not to accept that the next toss of a
fair coin must come up Tails, or that the probability that it will is
greater than one-half. Acceptance, we should remember, unlike
believing, is an action that is under our direct control.

If one accepts a proposition, then one can also act upon the
proposition. Acting upon a proposition is behaving as though it were
true. The two-step regimen of accepting a proposition and then acting
upon it is a common way of generating belief in that proposition. And,
importantly, there is no hint of self-deception tainting the
process.

One might object that employing a belief-inducing technology at all,
whether low or high tech, is enough to entangle one in issues
implicating the rationality of the belief induced (see, for instance,
Garber, 2009). A friend of the pragmatic, however, might argue that
that this objection presupposes Strong Evidentialism, and arguments
found in William James, the Duty argument, the Equal Treatment
argument, have already provided a dispositive ruling on that issue.

While not as common as theistic arguments, there have been atheistic
pragmatic arguments offered from time to time. These arguments often
arise within the context of a purported naturalistic explanation of
the occurrence of religious belief and practice. Perhaps the earliest
proponent of an atheistic pragmatic argument was David Hume
(1711–1776). In chapter X of his 1757 The Natural History
of Religion, Hume wrote:

Where the deity is presented as infinitely superior to
mankind, this belief... is apt, when joined with superstitious
terrors, to sink the human mind into the lowest submission and
abasement …

The idea of Hume’s argument here and elsewhere in his writings (see
for instance Dialogue XII of his Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion, and appendix IV of the second Enquiry) is that theism,
or at least theism of the popular sort—that conjoined with
“superstitious terrors,” degrades individual morality,
thereby devaluing human existence. Theistic belief, Hume contended,
inculcates the “monkish virtues of mortification, penance,
humility, and passive suffering, as the only qualities which are
acceptable…” But not only does theistic belief harm
individual morality, according to Hume, it also harms public
morality. In chapter IX, Hume suggested that theism (again he
qualifies by writing of the “corruptions of theism”)
leads to intolerance and persecution.

Another atheistic pragmatic argument is that of Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939), who in The Future of an Illusion (1927)
contends that religious belief perpetuates psychological immaturity
among individuals, and cultural immaturity on the social level. To
make sense of Freud’s argument requires knowing that he employed the
term “illusion” in an idiosyncratic way. An illusion in
the Freudian sense is a belief that is caused by and in turn
satisfies a deep psychological need or longing. Illusions are not
held rationally. Illusions stick even in the absence of any
supporting evidence. Indeed, according to Freud, they stick even in
the face of strong contra-evidence. An illusion could be true, but
often they are not. Delusions are false illusions. Religious belief
Freud thought was an illusion. While it may have been a beneficial
illusion at an earlier time, it no longer is. The religious illusion
now, Freud asserted, inhibits scientific progress, and causes
psychological neuroses, among its other pernicious effects.

Another atheistic pragmatic argument is Richard Dawkin’s
contention that religious belief is a “virus of the mind”
(Dawkins 1993). One is religious, according to Dawkins, because one
has been infected by a faith meme. A meme is Dawkins’s
imaginative construct, which he describes as a bit of information,
manifested in behavior, and which can be copied from one person to
another. Like genes, memes are self-replicating vehicles, jumping from
mind to mind. One catches a meme by exposure to another who is
infected. Dawkins claims that the faith meme has the following
traits:

M1. The faith meme seems to the person as true, or right, or
virtuous, though this conviction in fact owes nothing to evidence or
reason.

M2. The faith meme makes a virtue out of believing in spite of there
being no evidence.

M4. The faith meme arises not because of evidence but because of
epidemiology; typically, if one has a faith, it is the same as one’s
parents and as one’s grandparents.

Dawkins’s meme idea, and his dismissal of faith as a virus of the
mind, is both a purported naturalistic explanation of religious
belief and a pragmatic dismissal of it as a harmful phenomenon.

A contemporary atheistic pragmatic argument is that the existence of
God would make the world far worse in some respects than would be the
case if God did not exist, even if it did not make the world worse
overall (Kahane 2011). As Kahane notes, if God were to exist, then a
full understanding of reality by humans, may in-principle be
unachievable. Additionally, if God were to exist, moral autonomy may
be limited, since humans, as creatures, might be subordinate to God’s
demands, including demands for worship, obedience, and
allegiance. Finally, if God were to exist, complete privacy may be
lost, as an omnsicient being could, presumably, know one’s thoughts
and attitudes.

Kahane’s intricate argument is counter to the conventional view that
God’s existence is something that all should hope for, since this
world would, arguably, be the best or among the best of all possible
worlds if God were to exist. Even so, Kahane argues that one could
rationally prefer that God not exist. The argument invovles a
distinction between evaluations from an impersonal viewpoint, and from
a personal viewpoint. It is the latter, which proves the most
promising for the argument as Kahane contends that the existence of
God could undermine the meaning generating life-projects of some. If
his argument is sound, Kahane has provided a kind of athiestic
pragmatic argument that one could prefer that God not exist, even if
God’s existence would render the world better overall than it
otherwise would be.

Much of Kahane’s argument consists of comparisons between possible
worlds in which God exists (“Godly worlds”), and those in
which God does not exist (“Godless worlds”). The modal
reliability of these comparisons is far from obvious, since God is
standardly seen as a necessarily existing being. For a critical
examination of Kahane’s arguments, see Kraay 2013.